1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a parts feeder for automatically feeding parts such as valve guides for use in internal combustion engines, and more particularly to an automatic parts feeder suitable for use with an assembling device for pressing differently shaped valve guides into the cylinder heads of internal combustion engines of various designs.
2. Description of Relevant Art
There have been employed assembling devices for pressing sets of intake value guides and exhaust valve guides alternately into the cylinder heads of internal combustion engines of different designs. Associated with such assembling devices, there has been a demand for a small-sized parts feeder capable of feeding various valve guides for use in such differently designed internal combustion engines. Most desirably, the parts feeder would be capable of operating automatically and efficiently.
A particular drawback associated with conventional parts feeders occurs where valve guides having flanges required by certain internal combustion engines are the parts to be fed. Such flanges have prevented the valve guides from being arranged neatly. Since the center of gravity of each flanged valve guide is longitudinally displaced from its geometrical center, its weight is not well balanced and the flanged valve guides cannot neatly be arranged in a vertical delivery chute in which they are vertically stacked. Therefore, the flanged valve guides cannot be smoothly and reliably fed out of the vertical delivery chute.
Another drawback associated with conventional parts feeders occurs in the production of internal combustion engines, where it has been customary to employ a parts feeder designed for feeding parts for one engine type on a mass-production basis. When internal combustion engines of another type are to be manufactured, the parts feeder must be replaced with a different parts feeder. The conventional parts feeder is therefore not suitable for the production of engines of many different types in relatively small quantities.
One known automatic parts feeder is disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 51(1976)-2152. Since this prior automatic parts feeder is designed for automatically feeding balls for being pressed into engines, it cannot not be used for feeding specially shaped parts such as valve guides.
The present invention has been made in view of the drawbacks of the conventional parts feeders.